← Home
Gospel of Philip · 2 of 13 · tr. Thomas O. Lambdin

Section 1b

TRUTH MADE NAMES Truth made names in the world, and without them we can’t think. Truth is one and is many, teaching one thing through the many. RULERS The rulers wanted to fool us, since they saw we were connected with the good. They took the names of the good and gave them to the not good so with names they could trick and rope us to the not good. As though doing us a favor, they took names from the not good and placed them on the good. They knew what they were doing. They wanted to grab those of us who were free and make us eternal slaves. FORCES There are forces that don’t want us to be saved. They act for their own sake. . . . If we are saved there will be no sacrifices, no animals offered to the forces. Yes, they made sacrifices to the animals. They were alive when they offered them, and then they died. They offered us dead to god, and we lived. ONCE THERE WAS NO BREAD Before Christ came there was no bread in the world, just as paradise, with its Adam, had many trees for nourishing animals but no wheat for humans. Once we nourished ourselves like animals, but when the perfect Christ came, he carried bread down from heaven so we could eat like humans. RULERS AND THE HOLY SPIRIT The rulers thought they had done everything alone, but in secret the holy spirit on her own accomplished it all. SOWING TRUTH Truth from the beginning is sown everywhere. Many see it sown. Few see it reaped. MARY AND THE HOLY SPIRIT Some say the holy spirit inseminated Mary. They are wrong and don’t know what they are saying. When did a woman ever get a woman pregnant? Mary is a virgin and no powers dirtied her. She is a great repugnance to the Jews who are apostolic, who are the messengers. No powers dirtied the virgin. They dirtied themselves. THE LORD’S FATHER The lord would never say, “My father who is in heaven” unless he had another father elsewhere. He would have simply said, “My father.” POSSESSIONS The lord said to the students, “From every house you are in, take out possessions, but take things into the father’s house and do not steal what is inside and run off.” JESUS IS A HIDDEN NAME Jesus is a hidden name, Christ is an open one. So Jesus is not a word in any tongue but a name they call him. In Syriac the Christ is messias, in Greek he is christos. All languages have their own way of calling him. Nazarene is the revealed name for what is secret. WHAT IS CHRIST? In himself Christ has everything, be it human or angel or mystery and the father. THE LORD ASCENDING Some say the lord died first and then ascended. They are wrong. He rose first and then he died. Unless you are first resurrected, you will not die. As god lives, you would already be dead. PENNY AND SOUL No one would hide a beautiful and valuable object under a lovely cover, but often vast monies are held in a bag worth only a penny. Consider the soul. It is a precious spirit and it came in a contemptible body. SOME ARE AFRAID Some are afraid that they will ascend from death naked, and they want to climb back to life in their flesh. They are unaware that those who wear their flesh are naked, and those who strip are not naked. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of god.” What will we not inherit? The flesh we wear on us. But what then will we inherit as our own? The body of Jesus and his blood.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →
Themes
Archonscosmology

Malevolent planetary rulers or demiurgic powers that govern the material world and obstruct the soul's ascent.

The text explicitly mentions 'Rulers' and 'Forces' that oppose salvation and seek to enslave humans.

All passages →
Body As Obstacleanthropology

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

[auto] The body is described as 'contemptible' and the text asserts that 'Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of god.'

All passages →
Cosmic Dualismtheology

Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.

A clear opposition is drawn between the 'good' (Truth) and the 'not good' (Rulers/Forces).

All passages →
Demiurgecosmology

A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God.

The 'Rulers' function similarly to a demiurgic power by manipulating the world's order and names against the divine will.

All passages →
Detachment Gelassenheitpraxis

Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.

The instruction to 'take out possessions' from every house reflects a radical letting-go of material attachments.

All passages →
Divine Hiddennesstheology

The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.

Truth is concealed by rulers who swap names of the good and not good to trick humanity.

All passages →
Divine Providencetheology

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

It is stated that 'in secret the holy spirit on her own accomplished it all,' indicating divine ordering.

All passages →
Divine Sparkscosmology

Fragments of divine light or spirit trapped inside material bodies, awaiting liberation and return to their source.

The soul is described as a 'precious spirit' that came in a 'contemptible body,' implying a divine fragment trapped in matter.

All passages →
Funerary Navigationpraxis

Texts and rituals guiding the soul through death.

Instructions on ascending from death and the state of the soul after death guide the passage through mortality.

All passages →
Gnosis Direct Knowledgesoteriology

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

Salvation is implied to come from understanding the deception of names and recognizing the Truth.

All passages →
Hidden Sayingssoteriology

Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.

[auto] The distinction between the hidden name of Jesus and the revealed name Nazarene indicates esoteric teachings reserved for those who understand the secret.

All passages →
Kenomacosmology

The void or emptiness outside the pleroma; the realm of matter, ignorance, and deficiency.

The material world is depicted as deficient, having 'no bread' before Christ and nourishing humans like animals.

All passages →
Paradox As Teachingethics

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

The passage uses paradoxes such as 'Truth is one and is many' and being offered dead to God yet living.

All passages →
Pneumatic Electsoteriology

A spiritual elite who possess the divine spark and are predestined for salvation, contrasted with psychic (faithful) and hylic (material) persons.

The text distinguishes between 'those of us who were free' and the many, noting that 'Few see it reaped.'

All passages →
Rejection Of Hypocrisyethics

Critique of outward religious observance that lacks inner transformation; form without substance.

The rulers are described as acting 'as though doing us a favor' while actually tricking and enslaving people.

All passages →
Renunciation Of Wealthethics

The spiritual danger of attachment to material possessions; wealth as a spiritual obstacle.

The command to remove possessions from houses highlights the spiritual danger of material attachment.

All passages →
Return To Sourcesoteriology

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

The goal is to be saved and ascend from death to inherit the body of Jesus, reversing the entrapment.

All passages →
Sacred Namestheology

Divine names or formulas that carry ontological power, used in prayer, liturgy, or magical practice.

The passage centrally discusses how Truth created names and how rulers manipulate these names to deceive humanity.

All passages →
Separation From Sourcesoteriology

The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.

Humans are described as originally 'connected with the good' but tricked and roped to the not good.

All passages →
Spiritual Ascentpraxis

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

The text discusses ascending from death and the necessity of being resurrected before dying.

All passages →
Theosis Deificationsoteriology

The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.

The saved will inherit 'the body of Jesus and his blood,' indicating a transformation into divine likeness.

All passages →
Tripartite Soulanthropology

Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).

The text distinguishes between the soul, the spirit ('precious spirit'), and the body ('contemptible body').

All passages →
Related passages · 11 parallels
theosophy|The Secret Doctrine|Page 56 (part 3)
“2, Page]] 113 THE SECRET WORK OF CHIRAM. active emanations from the three higher principles in man, namely, "Spirit, Soul, and Mind," or Atma, Buddhi, and Manas. It is the spiritual and also the material human basis. Rudimentary man, hav…”
Shared concept: Tripartite Soul — Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma). (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 2, Section 1n
“200 Redemption is a work performed by the whole Trinity through the Second Person. (So, too, is Creation. Cf. p. 65, n. 2). 201 i. e. We strive to distinguish the two planes of Being in God. Cf. Athan. Creed: “Neither confounding…”
Shared concept: Theosis Deification — The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy. (derived)
western_esoteric|The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall)|Qabbalistic Keys to the Creation of Man-a
“HENRIE STEPHEN, in A World of Wonders , published in 1607, mentions a monk of St. Anthony who declared that while in Jerusalem the patriarch of that city had shown him not only one of the ribs of the Word made flesh and some rays from the…”
Shared concept: Hidden Sayings — Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth. (derived)
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 127
“Section 5 5. It may be objected that the Intellectual-Principle possesses its content in an eternal conjunction so that the two make a perfect unity, and that thus there is no Matter there. But that argument would equally cancel the Matter…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Dualism — Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality. (derived)
egyptian|The Egyptian Heaven and Hell|Chapter 2 (part 1)
“p. vi PREFACE THE present work is the outcome of two lectures on the Books of the Tuat, i.e., the Egyptian Underworld, or "Other World," which I had the honour to deliver at the Royal Institution in the spring of 1904, and it has been prep…”
Shared concept: Funerary Navigation — Texts and rituals guiding the soul through death. (derived)
theosophy|The Secret Doctrine|Page 29 (part 6)
“And this is metempsychosis ( See " Mineral Monad " in " Five Years of Theosophy ," p. 276). This fifth stage of evolution, called exoterically "Creation," may be viewed in both the Primary and Secondary periods, one as the Spiritual and C…”
Shared concept: Demiurge — A secondary creator deity—often ignorant or malevolent—responsible for fashioning the material world, distinct from the supreme transcendent God. (derived)
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 161
“Section 5 5. Still more unreasonably: There are men, bound to human bodies and subject to desire, grief, anger, who think so generously of their own faculty that they declare themselves in contact with the Intelligible World, but deny that…”
Shared concept: Divine Providence — Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Meister Eckhart's Sermons (Field translation)|PREFACE-a
““ Meister Eckhart ,” who has been called the “Father of German thought,” was a Dominican monk, and one of the most profound thinkers of the Middle Ages. He was born about 1260 A.D. in Thuringia, and died at Cologne 1327 A.D. In 1295 he w…”
Shared concept: Detachment Gelassenheit — Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim. (derived)
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 10 (part 9)
“"All sacrificing without faith and divine desire is an p. 219 abomination before God, and does not reach the gate of divine glory; but if man enters therein with the power of faith, he surrenders to it his free will, and desires by that me…”
Shared concept: Rejection Of Hypocrisy — Critique of outward religious observance that lacks inner transformation; form without substance. (derived)
native_american|The Soul of the Indian|Chapter I-b
“Sometimes an old man, standing upon the brink of eternity, might reveal to a chosen few the oracle of his long-past youth. The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity. They forget…”
Shared concept: Renunciation Of Wealth — The spiritual danger of attachment to material possessions; wealth as a spiritual obstacle. (derived)
hermeticism|Corpus Hermeticum 10: The Sermon on the Mount|Section 1a
“The Key <This longer tractate presents itself explicitly as a summary or abridgement of the General Sermons (CH II-IX), and discusses the Hermetic view of knowledge and its role in the lives and afterlives of human beings. The attentive re…”
Shared concept: Pneumatic Elect — A spiritual elite who possess the divine spark and are predestined for salvation, contrasted with psychic (faithful) and hylic (material) persons. (derived)